


things were never meant to stay the same anyways

by feilynn



Category: Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (TV 2012), Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe - Future, Angst, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Gen, SAINW
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-02-10
Updated: 2019-02-10
Packaged: 2019-10-25 15:39:55
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,361
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17728019
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/feilynn/pseuds/feilynn
Summary: Mikey wasn't sure what he had messed up this time.One minute, he was in the lair, indulging himself in the sewer-water-stained comic book he had found days back before, without realizing it until the silence finally hit him, everything around him just...changed.Suddenly, the chill on his spine comes back to him as he finds himself eye-to-eye with someone he knew all too well and yet, didn't."M-Michelangelo? Is it really you?"(Or, the 2012 version of SAINW where Mikey ends up in a torn world and an even more dysfunctional family fighting to the death over a future ruled by the Shredder.)





	things were never meant to stay the same anyways

 

Mikey wasn't sure what he had messed up this time.

One minute, he was in the lair, indulging himself in the sewer-water-stained comic book he had found days back before, without realizing it until the silence finally hit him, everything around him just...changed.    
  
It takes him a minute to adjust his vision to the surroundings that greets his own mind. The lair, well, it had seen better days, even before when Splinter first found it. In fact, it almost seemed unrecognizable to the orange-masked turtle at first due to the numerous slabs of bricks and train parts scattered all over the place. It almost seemed unrecognizable that the only thing which Mikey saw had remained was the empty pizza box right in front of the couch. And given the fight from just a while ago, Mikey immediately knew who took the last slice of pizza.   
  
"Dang it, Raph!"   
  
The last slice of pizza should have been his! He won that game of Uno fair and square by not looking at Raph's cards for once. For the first time since three weeks ago, Mikey felt the urge to actually chase his brother down the sewers and choke the pizza out of him. Mikey didn't care if it would taste like shit, especially if it came from Raph's mouth. He was actually being fair for once and yet his own brother had to betray him like that? Oh, he is so going to get it once Mikey storms off to wherever Raph's room is now-   
  
But then, silence befalls his ears once more as Mikey finally realizes the oddity that surrounds the lair.   
  
It then hits him in the head. Hard. He should have been able to point this out upon not hearing the, "Are you okay?" from Leo, the "Where the shell are we?" from Raph, and whatever over-the-top scientific gibberish blabber Donnie had to say about...wherever he is in now, actually.   
  
Where are his brothers?    
  
x-x-x-x-x   
  
It takes him several minutes of scavenging through nearby, accessible tunnels and screaming his brothers' (even his father's, for Pete's sake!) names when Mikey gives up.   
  
Much like the lair, the sewer tunnels are busted with only a few areas of it remaining to be "walkable" (or, out of Mikey's desperation and worry that his brothers may have done something dumb, "jumpable", if he were to put it that way). But with each accessible tunnel came no sign of life. Even a corpse would be more than enough for Mikey to be more than relieved. He then thinks about actually finding someone's skeleton in one of those accessible areas. Mikey is actually itching for a sign of life this much that he's so ready to befriend its skull and actually take it with him while he goes off to find his entire family in the wreckage.   
  
He then snorts and laughs at the idea. Raph would've probably been terrified should he see the bone in question. Even Donnie isn't prone to the terrifying aura of anything that spells out "bones" in his head. Only Leo would remain calm, sternly telling Mikey to drop the skull because then, it'd scare the shit out of his brothers for hours and the last thing they need is another distraction in finding whatever needs to be found. And man did he have the rights to tell Raph to "loosen up" for once.   
  
The sinking feeling in his stomach then comes back at once, bringing Mikey down to where he currently is now: sitting on one spot of the last accessible tunnel he had found, his shell leaning onto its walls while he sighs.   
  
Truth to tell, Mikey hadn't really felt this emotion in a long time.    
  
It had only been once when Mikey felt the actual desperation and need for his brothers to be by his side. His misadventures in Dimension X may not have even lasted for a quarter of an Earth day and yet, time seemed to fly so fast in that universe that by the time his brothers landed into that place, Mikey's seventeenth birthday had come long and gone with nothing else but the bitter memory of sitting on one of the islands, slowly giving up at the hope that his brothers would find him. But like any minor wound he had gotten in his childhood, the pain healed quickly and soon, Mikey slowly forgot the feeling of even missing his brothers and was back on his own two feet, ready to give the spotlight back to whoever needed it the most.   
  
But shell does he miss his brothers! He doubts that they'd leave him in that place for that long. (Although, the small part in Mikey's mind begs to differ. Is that even how "begs to differ" is supposed to be used? He makes a mental note to ask about Donnie about it later.)   
  
Mikey then groans, now feeling a sudden itch coming from the back of his mind.   
  
"Focus, Mikey,"he utters to himself, looking at the dark, dripping ceiling above him. "Your bros are gone, your dad is gone, this place is a wreck, and you weren't even there to witness all of it." He then stomps his foot out of anger. "Gah! Raph is right. I have to lay it low with the comics."   
  
Maybe that's why Raph took the last of his pizza. Maybe it was to prove that point. And there Mikey lays, wincing in pain as he had been mentally slapped across the face by Raph's words.   
  
But this isn't the time to mope. He has a family to find.    
  
It is really the only reason Mikey eventually finds the energy to stand up, despite the ache in his legs haunting every move he tries to make.   
  
After all, there is one place he hasn't checked yet.   
  
Mikey peers at the rusted manhole above him and gulps.   
  
Day or night, he will go topside and he will most definitely find his family up there, no matter what.   
  
So, with another gulp, Mikey climbs up the now brown-stained ladder and carefully lifts the manhole right on top of him.   
  
The good news? It's already nighttime which means that Mikey now has better chances of going all stealth mode, especially since the lights had been off, making it easier for him to just easily dive into the shadows without anyone actually batting an eye on him. So, big deal, it's going to be a walk in the park after all. With seemingly no electricity powering up the proclaimed city that never sleeps, Mikey can just swoop into anywhere, even TCRI, and rescue his family before the lights come back. Then everything will be solved, right?   
  
The bad news, however, only comes at full circle as Mikey is greeted by a sight that has only made the twisting feeling in his guts worse.   
  
He could have sworn seeing the logo of the Foot Clan decorating the building in front of him.   
  
But that means something, right? And Mikey doubts Shredhead would mark any building that isn't his with his own clan's logo unless he had actually taken authority to do it.   
  
Of course, this only leaves Mikey with one other possibility.   
  
Silently, he takes his thoughts from a while ago and mentally thanks Raph for finishing the last of the pizza because had he done it, Mikey would have thrown it up at the thought of his entire family under the Shredder. Mikey already knows that he and the Shredder aren't exactly on good terms. He also knows for a fact that whatever he's going to do will result him in death caused by some forty plus-year old man who wouldn't ever get over some girl they had met in high school.   
  
But, okay. It's his family, anyways. Mikey can act selfless just this once if it means assuring everybody who isn't Shredder that they'll turn out okay in the end, even if it kills him (which most likely will happen).   
  
His stomach rumbles again and Mikey groans once more.   
  
Again, he takes his words back. He will kick Raph's ass for getting his last slice of pizza.   
  
x-x-x-x-x   
  
Climbing up the surface has actually been harder than Mikey had thought of at first. The ladder was actually wet and covered with some brownish liquid with a scent that made Mikey nearly puke. Donnie had mentioned of this a long time ago. But with the flurry of scientific nonsense his brother had to deliver for the past several years, Mikey could only retain a few, significant words which had actually stuck out even until now. (And Mikey thought he is supposed to be the dumb one here.)   
  
It has something to do with the rust which is why the dirt on his hands look as such.   
  
But Mikey immediately removes any of that complaining crap for once. Raph could actually be getting himself killed for all he knows which isn't fair because it should be Mikey whooping his ass over some last slice of pizza, not over an unattended rivalry that doesn't even involve his brothers in the first place!   
  
He takes a good inhale of the seemingly even more polluted air of New York and sighs before climbing up the ladder once more.   
  
At least the rooftops had stayed the same. If even the rooftops had changed to have something like spikes or actual lava, Mikey knows that he's going to lose it. As much as Mikey welcomes change easily (even more than his own brothers), the fear of not having anything remotely close to what he usually sees still creeps into his mind, forming a sort of attaching and clinging personality towards the things that he much rather have it the way it is.   
  
(That entire month in April's farm house, while it had been a pretty visit with no other humans to snatch him up for a government-funded experiment and the stars littering the sky, only ended up as nothing else but a painful reminder to the turtle: that he couldn't live another day without actually wanting to desperately cling onto something he had been so used to.   
  
And by nearly losing Leo to the coma, Mikey thought that even he was going to be stripped off from the list for, possibly, forever.)   
  
So it feels good that the rooftop has never changed. It still has the same amount of roughness that made marks on Mikey's palms every time he dared to press them onto the ground. Nevertheless, it is still a rooftop from birth and even now.   
  
Unfortunately, the sight in front of him has only churned up his insides even more, making Mikey mentally numb from any movement that isn't by his own volition. So it comes as a surprise, then, when Mikey finds himself on its ledge, his baby blue eyes wandering at the sight that had only brought a sense of nostalgia...in the wrong way, of course.   
  
In the few, slowly decreasing nights when Mikey was actually able to get some sleep, he could only see the same thing in his dreams. And with each dream passing by, the horizon always looked worse or even better at times, falling from normal-looking-town-that-doesn't-seemed-like-it's-controlled-by-the-Shredder-when-it-actually-is to an actual wreckage of a war with nothing left but the city's ruins tumbling down to the sewers, to memories of his childhood and graffiti now exposed to a world where even the living had already vanished, leaving nothing but he, alone.   
  
And, seeing the flags of the Foot Clan logo waving on every single building with flat-screen billboards and balloons showing nothing else but the face of their supposed enemy sneering down at his citizens, Mikey is pretty sure that what he's seeing is right in the middle of his prescribed range.   
  
He then hears a voice. An awfully familiar one, it is.   
  
"Serve the Shredder. He is your lord and master. Serve the Shredder and live."   
  
Mikey couldn't do much except let the pang of betrayal fill his every core. One thing is for sure though: he could do a thousand flips even with his aching legs ready to give in yet it wouldn't withstand the amount of pain he feels just by hearing her voice.   
  
Raph is right yet again. Even the people you consider as family cannot be trusted at all times.   
  
Dejected, Mikey is about to turn away and maybe rest for the day when he suddenly finds himself basked in the light.   
  
He then looks up and finds a rather shocking sight.   
  
It is a helicopter. And its light is pointing towards him.   
  
This isn't the first time Mikey had felt like a criminal, though. He's probably run into a bit too much trouble every Troublemaking Thursday that he has pretty much been a master of running away from the police. Not even Leo could do that, despite his wit and skill, and it made Mikey feel good about himself for once.   
  
But if you're surrounded by Shredder's cronies from north to south, east to west, then the achievement is forgotten and Mikey actually wishes on the inside that he had been even as half as a good son than Leo.   
  
He tries to sheath his weapons from his belt only to realize that they weren't there. And while Mikey can hold them off with just fists, he knows how far his efforts could only go.   
  
"You are under arrested for treason against the empire of the Shredder."   
  
And, sure. He and his brothers had given so much of a bad time against the Shredder in their fights. But whatever had caused the city to become...this, well, Mikey knew he wasn't even involved in it some way or another. Much as he would, however, he knows better than to get involved in something this nasty. His only job is just to knock some sense into Shredder, not fuel his anger to start up his own empire in New York.   
  
But, whatever. Mikey is screwed either way. At least he could spare a few more wounds if he can hold Shredder's cronies, right?   
  
Before he could even almost admit defeat, a flash of green appears.   
  
And for a minute there, Mikey actually feels happy about being alive.   
  
And then-wait a minute.   
  
A flash? Of green?   
  
On any normal day really, Mikey would actually be thrilled to see even one of his brothers come into the scene and maybe save his ass. And man was he relieved! At least it gave Mikey a sense of assurance that they weren't under Shredder's mind control spell or whatever Mr. Tin Can had in store for them. Which means that Mikey actually gets to have the rights to be the only one to kick Raph's ass for stealing the last of his pizza.   
  
Except, even this feels odd. Even more odd than when Mikey first found himself in a now disaster-stricken lair.    
  
He takes a look at the leaping and flipping turtle to see red tails going along with the wind. Which, speaking of the devil, Mikey realizes that it is Raph. Boy was he glad to see him. Normally, he'd have Donnie kick his shell and save him any time of the day but it's Raph. Despite what might happen later after the fight, Raph was never one to actually fail his brothers, especially when it comes to the safety to his brothers. He'd even kill and throw away his honor if it really meant that his family would leave, unscathed and free.   
  
(Which is why Mikey had regarded Raph as his own superhero in some kind of twisted way diverting from the usual lifted-from-the-comic-book superhero identity. At least Raph was an honest individual and Mikey respects him for that reason as well.)    
  
Mikey doesn't even take notice of the leather brown jacket on him. He must have probably robbed it from a thrift store. He did look cool in it, Mikey admitted.   
  
And man did he want to kick Raph's ass again. Didn't he promise to take him to thrift shopping almost a month ago? Why did he only do it just as Mikey was roaming around the destructed sewers--when he clearly needed help and thrift shopping with his brother as well?   
  
He was definitely going to get another ass whooping from him. Mikey sets his mind on it just before an even more gruff voice cuts his thoughts across you.   
  
"Behind you!"   
  
Mikey then sees it: an angry Foot ninja tries to run at him, sword at hand. Mikey's only response, however, is a kick in the guts and the catch of whatever sword he had been holding up until that point.   
  
It then becomes apparent to him, the owner of it.    
  
He does recognize his sword.   
  
Mikey could have recognized it from the blue cloth tightly wrapped on its handle.   
  
"A katana sword,"he utters.   
  
Just as he senses another Foot ninja coming at him, Mikey immediately turns around and manages to pierce through his arm before kicking him to the ledge where he stays, dozed off, and bleeding in his position.   
  
“Look, kid. I appreciate the fact that you're helping but,”  _ Punch _ . “You're gonna do me an even bigger favor if you  _ leave _ before the Shred—”

“Oh come on, Raph!”By then, Mikey had already eliminated six more ninjas using his other brother's lone sword. “You leave for like five minutes and then come back to treat me like a stranger without even  _ realizing  _ that there are, how many, was it?”  _ Slash.  _ “Four ninja turtles in this entire universe and one of them is here?!”

He then feels Raph stop.

Mikey then turns around to see his brother, panting from fighting off the last ninja and yet, he holds this gaze where the orange clad turtle couldn't help but feel a sense of worry in his veins.

His once, bright green eyes (or, eye, considering that one of them had been stitched up  _ pretty  _ well) completely lack (lacks?) the light it once held. Mikey could no longer see a bright emerald in his eye. Instead, he could only see dark moss green, the same kind he'd see growing in the sewer without the need of light. That look alone is more than enough to send chills down his spine.

It makes him wonder, then. If Raph leaving for maybe five or ten minutes had completely stolen his own soul, then what of Leo and Donnie then?

Just as Mikey is about to ask that, Raph takes ahold of his own wrist and sends both of them flying from rooftop to rooftop, unsure of where the latter is going which only makes the former want to  _ hurl  _ even more now. Mikey then looks to the side to see bullets and bullets from various guns heading towards them. It doesn't take a while, however, for Raph to finally get them down and into the sewer where the only thing they could hear now are the growing distant sounds of gunshots.

Mikey sighs and leans back. Unfortunately, it seems as if he isn't going to get his well-deserved rest just yet.

He finds his own chin being lifted by his brother's fingers. Suddenly, the chill on his spine comes back to him as he finds himself eye-to-eye with someone he knew all too well and yet, didn't.

It didn't look like Raph at all. His right eye seems to be the only one remaining with the left stitched up tightly. Across his face is a huge scar, not exactly old but neither is it new from the looks of it. Much like what he had noticed a while ago, he's wearing a brown leather jacket that could’ve passed off as if it had been bought from a thrift store. Overall, though, Raph looks bigger, tougher, and stronger with the amount of muscles he had been gaining as compared to his (younger? other dimensional?) self.

Despite the intimidating appearance, however, Mikey could see the worry and concern etching over the only eye he has left.   
  
"M-Michelangelo? Is it really you?"

And then, a snarl comes after.

 

“Where the  _ fuck _ have you been all these years?!” 


End file.
